


Self Reliance

by Purplefern



Category: Captain Underpants Series - Dav Pilkey, The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants (Cartoon)
Genre: Child Neglect (Referenced), Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, It's not descriptive but I figured I should tag, Melvinborg has to deal with a sick child, Older Fic, Sick Fic, Two Shot, Vomiting, Which means I'm ragging on Gaylord again, a ton of unnecessary cyborg headcanons, just the Melvins hanging out, lots of headcanons, more musings on Melvinborg, sometimes you just have to be your own dad, the Melvins have trust issues, this somehow turned into a whole thing about Melvin's parents, writing two of the same person can get confusing, written pre-Hack-a-Ween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23478496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purplefern/pseuds/Purplefern
Summary: Melvins were notoriously bad at accepting help from others. Even when they weren’t feeling their best, their pride wouldn’t allow it. But it doesn’t count as getting help if the person helping you is yourself, right?
Relationships: Melvin Sneedly & Melvin Sneedly's Father (Referenced), Melvinborg & Melvin Sneedly
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pokedash55](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pokedash55/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Borg’s robot half breaks a little, and he needs repairs. Normally he’d do this by himself, and wouldn’t have anyone help him, but, well, if his past self helps then he’s still just doing it himself, right? (Someone’s gotta hold the soldering iron, after all.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting, completed, in a Google Doc since like September. Figured it was time to post it.

Principal Melvinborg stood and watched as what looked like a part-rat, part-chicken, part- _zombie_?, raged through the gym. He probably should have been doing something else somewhere else, like getting himself to safety or checking up on the rest of the student body like an actually helpful principal (why’d he decide being principal was a good idea, again?), but instead he was standing here and glaring at what was 100% guaranteed to be some George and Harold mess.(Ok, 96%. There was a chance that this was actually his younger self’s fault but since he didn’t remember there ever being a zombie-chicken-rat incident while he was in fourth grade, he was going to assume that George and Harold were to blame.) Their bumbling buffoon of a superhero was flying around the gym at that very moment, being useless, as usual. Still for some reason not taking this as an excuse to go back to his secure office, he scowled as George and Harold -- of course --ran into the room alongside the near-naked wonder. Was it really too much to ask to have one day of learning be uninterrupted by these ridiculous monster-of-the-week situations? It was _these_ sort of incidents that were keeping him out of Elitinati (er, that had kept him out of Elitinati).

He was so busy shooting hate-filled glares at the two boys that he was caught by surprise as the rat-chicken-zombie’s tail swung right into him, knocking him violently against the wall where he fell heavily into the bleachers, and eventually crashed onto the floor.

“Hey!” he shouted at the battle, sitting up and spitting some feathers out of his mouth, “Important principal here! Show a little care you wet matches!” No one appeared to notice him, and the battle continued on.  
Taking this as his cue to leave, he stood up, dusted himself off, and immediately noticed that something was off. He was only seeing out of one eye. He tried blinking his robotic eye. No response.  
He groaned internally as his eye continued to fail to respond. That was going to need repairs, sooner rather than later. Grumbling, he made his way to his office (only accidentally running into a wall twice, thank you very much), and was unsurprised to find himself already there when he opened the door. Not acknowledging the younger Melvin’s presence, he walked unsteadily to his desk and got a toolbox that he used for maintenance out from the bottom drawer. While he shuffled through the box for a screwdriver, Melvin the younger gave him a curious glance, gaze shifting from the cyborg to the toolbox and back.

“Did something happen?”

He scoffed at the question while he finally picked up the screwdriver and went searching for the  
wire stripper. “Just the usual class-disrupting freakshow _grace à_ George and Harold”.

His younger self rolled his eyes, unamused, “I meant, did something happen _to you_? Saying there was a monster in this school is about as useful as saying that the constant of gravity is 9.8 meters per second2”.

He waved a hand dismissively, still looking through the tool box with his other hand (which was somewhat unhelpful with only one functioning eye that had poor vision to begin with). “Ehh, I got caught in the fight a little. Those unsharpened pencils managed to shake my optics wire loose. Nothing serious”.

“Mm-hmm” the boy responded, his interest peaked at the term optics wire. When Melvinborg looked up, wire strippers in hand, he found himself met with a look that he knew he had given to many an appliance. He suddenly felt unusually self-conscience, and snapped to his former self, “Stop looking at me like I’m a toaster you want to take apart”.

Chastiend, Melvin squirmed and looked away for a moment, helpless against the word of an authority figure. He was just curious that was all. Really, what did his future self expect? He wanted to turn back around and say so, but just couldn’t. He couldn’t disobey _the principal_.

 _But_ , he figured after a moment, _I am him. Or rather, he is me. So do I really have to treat him like the principal?_ Emboldened by this line of thought, he turned back around confidently. But when he saw his future cyborg self reaching over his shoulder with his robotic arm, screwdriver in hand, neck craning to see what he was doing, he dropped whatever sassy remark he was going to come up with. “Do you...want help with that?” he instead asked bemusedly.

Melvinborg stopped short from where he had been jiggling the screwdriver, attempting to get it into place at the panel at his back, but then resolutely continued as if he hadn’t been caught off guard by the offer. “Please.” he replied with as much nonchalant disdain as he could muster, “I’m a genius, and this is _my_ body. I don’t need assistance for a simple repair”.

“Uh-huh” his younger replied, not convinced in the least, “You really should stop lying to yourself” Borg turned his head sharply at the statement--was someone daring to try and give him psychological advice?-- but then he remembered who he was talking to and realized the double meaning.  
Melvin continued, “I get it, we’re smart, we don’t need other people’s help. But if I understand correctly the panel for the damaged wire is on your back. And you have only one functioning eye. Even with an extendable robot arm, won’t that be a bit difficult?”

Sitting bolt upright now, palms flat on the table, the cyborg responded tersely, looking threatening despite the fact that his bionic eye was still shuttered closed, “I don’t _need_ someone else’s help with this”.

“I’m not someone else. I’m you”, the younger couldn’t help but point out with a smirk.

He huffed wordlessly in response to the blatant abuse of semantics, but then considered it. If the person helping him was himself, was he really even needing help?

“You do realize,” his younger self added with a familiar cockiness, “that that wire may have to be soldered, right? Do you want to wield a soldering iron on your own systems that are on your back, while having limited depth perception?”

“What are you, my doctor?” he snarked, but then seriously considered his options here. He had managed to fix his systems on his own before, of course. It was always a pain, and always a struggle, but as yet, nothing had gone wrong. Buuuttt, having someone else do it would certainly be easier. His pride fought violently against the notion that he needed help doing his own repairs, but he reasoned that this could be an exception, considering who was offering to help. “Okay, fine” he finally agreed reluctantly. “But you’re just fixing the wire. Don’t go poking around!”

“Okay”, the boy responded as he excitedly dragged one of the blue plastic chairs around towards the principal's swivel office chair, and grabbed the screwdriver and wire stripper from the desk. “Although, I don’t see why it matters so much,” he said with a nonchalant shrug, “I’ll need to know this stuff anyway”.

Melvin stood on the chair so that he was eye level with his future self’s back, and unfocusedly scanned the metal exterior for any signs of damage. He hated to admit it, but now that he was actually doing this he was somewhat nervous. This was the first “project” he had worked on that was actually alive, and that was… a bit unsettling. Hoping to hide his sudden nervousness, he asked casually as he could, “So, where do we start?”

Equally casually, Melvinborg gestured with his mechanical thumb towards between his mismatched shoulder blades, saying in a shockingly bored-sounding tone, “Mid way up, there’ll be a panel about 2 by 1 ¼ inches. The screw is tiny, but it’s there. Just unscrew it and then we’ll see what the damage is”.

“Right” he replied, licking his lips anxiously and hoping he didn’t sound nervous. Inventions and mechanics were his forte, but this was starting to feel a bit more like a surgery the more he thought about it. All the same, he located the panel, and wondered that he even needed directions before. The whole area was slightly indented from whatever impact had messed up his eye, and it honestly looked slightly painful. “Found it,” he declared, looking somewhat uncomfortably up at Borg’s face, “The whole area is dented up pretty bad, so we’ll probably have to fix that, too…” his words dwindled as he noticed Borg’s nonchalant, again, almost bored, expression, and he couldn’t help but ask, “Can you… feel this?”

“Nah. Nerves shut off at the moment of impact. That doesn’t help the human side though, ouch” he ended with a grumble.

Melvin adjusted his glasses in surprise, as much as he knew about his cyborg self, it seemed there was more that he didn’t know. “You can control your nerve endings?”

“Of course. This body is my design. Could you imagine how uncomfortable it would be if I could feel every time I had to open my arm to do maintenance?” He made an uneasy face at the suggestion, admitting, “Actually, I have accidently left the nerve endings active during maintenance before” he shuddered at the memory, “It’s..not fun. Which is the only reason I’m even telling you this. So that you know in the future to not do that”.

“Duly noted” he said, turning back to the task at hand (or turning his hand to the task at back?). He felt slightly better now that he at least didn’t have to worry about causing pain, and he was once again overwhelmed with curiosity at how his future self’s body functioned. The line between human and machine was absolute, yet at the same time the two halves seemed to function together perfectly. It was truly a marvel of science, both technological and biological. Of course, he thought, it would be since he had designed it himself.

“Hey.” he heard his own voice say irritably, snapping him out of his thoughts, literally, with a snapping of fingers, “Just the wire, remember? Monocular at the moment, remember?”

“Ah, right” he responded, somewhat embarrassed. Focusing, he unscrewed the panel and placed both panel and screw to the side where they couldn’t get lost. “Erk” he groaned when he peeked inside the small opening. If the outside looked bad, the inside looked even worse. Several wires were frayed and tangled, and one looked to be torn off completely.

“Ok, there should be a white wire in there, that’s the ocular wire” Melvinborg’s still casual tone conflicted greatly with the chaotic mess his own body was currently in, “Don’t touch the red wire next to it” he warned in a more serious tone, “That one’s for the laser, and I’d really rather not have to clean up this office”.

 _You and I both know that you would just have Krupp clean it anyway_ , he thought in retort, but didn’t bother voicing the thought. Instead he just replied, “Yeah, I see it”. Looking closer at the white wire, he realized that it was completely ripped apart, and was dangling scarily close to said red wire. “That is definitely going to need to be soldered” he informed Melvinborg.

The cyborg groaned like a petulant child being told they were getting a shot, and slouched in his seat.

“I don’t see what you’re groaning about if you can’t even feel anything right now”

“It’s not about the _pain_ , it’s about the pain in the ass..” he trailed off, suddenly conscious of his audience’s age, “er,….sets. It’s about the wasted time. Fixing wires takes so much finagling and adjustment, and I have things to do”.

“It would take a long time if you were doing it yourself. Fortunately, you have _me_.” the young Melvin grinned smugly, “Just, here, I’ll go get the soldering iron”.

Melvinborg sat hunched over his desk and watched his younger self leave the room to grab a soldering iron from the tool closet down the hall (he apparently “wasn’t allowed” to keep such “dangerous items” in his office -- Superintendent Grace Wain). While he waited for Melvin’s return, he impatiently tapped his fingers on the desk. First his flesh ones, noting the feel of the grainy wood, then his robotic ones, which currently felt nothing. Unless he was looking directly at it he wouldn’t have even known he was touching the desk, it was like that whole half of his body was a void. This was why he _hated_ having the nerves shut off. Alone in his office, he allowed himself a shudder. It was like being in the hospital all over again, in a way-- hemiplegic, half-blind, half of his body numb and distant, and all becuase of those stupid...

Before his thoughts could spiral downwards any further, Melvin the younger returned, out of breath and clutching the tool to his chest. Melvinborg raised his remaining functioning brow at him, distantly figuring he should be concerned about this. He vaguely remembered what it was like, running out of breath so easily. Of course, he hasn’t had to worry about that for more than a year and a half now. “You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?”

Melvin heaved a few heavy breaths, but seemed to be getting better, managing to say between huffs and puffs, “Monster...in the hall...had to...run for it”.

 _The closet is literally two doors down the hall. Was I really that pathetic when I was a kid?_  
“Yeah, great hustle” he deadpanned with a dismissive wave of his organic hand, “Can we get this fixed already? I’d like to be able to see properly sometime soon”.

Nodding, Melvin clambered back into the chair, setting the custom soldering iron that doesn’t need to be plugged in or anything like that on the desk next to the screwdriver. Tweezers in hand, he hesitantly maneuvered the white cord back in place. It took a great effort to not jump in surprise, hand still inside his own back, when the cyborg jerked upright with a pleased, “oh. That’s better”.

“Hold still” he snapped, “I need to get this in place”. Even though his “patient” complied and didn’t move, Melvin knew himself well enough to know that he was mentally shrugging him off. He adjusted the wire placement, asking, “How’s that?”

“Hmm” Borg hummed, closing his human eye and considering, “A little out of focus”.

“Alright” he replied somewhat detachedly. The complete and total weirdness of all of this was just now settling in. But after some more moments of adjustment and finegeling, assisted by Melvinborg's “yes’s” “no’s” and extra indignant “no’s", they finally got the wire back in place. Some soldering magic later, and they had themselves one functioning cyborg eye (theoretically).

“Aaaand, finished” he finally said as he made sure that the wire was firmly back together, and then started screwing the panel back on. It was still all dented, but that could be dealt with later.

The cyborg blinked both his eyes for a moment, then tested just the robotic one, closing and opening it, and rolling his eye. “Finally” he sighed, relieved, and then Melvin almost missed it, but the adult momentarily stiffened with a barely audible squeak of pain, before his expression became more controlled. Melvin was not fooled. He knew, after all, what he looked like when he was hiding something.

“Did you seriously just try to turn the nerves back on when I _just_ finished putting hot solder in your back and it’s still all dented up?” he asked incredulously, tapping his foot on the plastic of the chair.

“It feels weird having them off!” Melvinborg snapped defensively. “I don’t have to explain myself to you” he concluded, crossing his arms.

Melvin rolled his eyes, “You’re welcome”, he said tartly.

Melvinborg grinned, “Aw, come on. You and I both know that I wouldn’t have said thank you”.

The younger cringed, offended, “I most certainly would! I may not like other people’s help, but I’m at least polite when I get it”.

“Agree to disagree” replied Melvinborg, unconvinced and clearly enjoying being able to properly roll his eyes again.

Before Melvin could retort there was a loud be-kaw from the hallway, followed by cheers of students. At that, the principal smoothly rose from his chair and stretched, and Melvin eyed him suspiciously. Was he stretching the robot half for show, or did he seriously turn his nerves back on again already? Melvin tried to think about what he would do, but was coming up frustratingly blank. It was always weird, and a little scary, when he found he didn’t understand how his future self was thinking. Like, it was him, he should know, shouldn’t he?

“Well, I’m all fixed up and it sounds like the monster has been dealt with. Time you got back to class”.

“Right”

As he turned towards the door, still a little mad at how ungrateful his future self could be, he was stopped short by a theatrical cough from the back of the room. He turned, waiting.

“I suppose, _if_ I get damaged again, that you could help with the repairs I can’t do by myself” Melvin felt his anger dissolve. This was a concession for assistance. Melvins didn’t give those out so freely. “After all,” his future self quickly amended, “If I’m helping myself, then it doesn’t really count as needing help. Just...providing myself a couple of extra hands”.

Rolling his eyes, Melvin just replied, “Sure”, and went back to class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter little Melvin gets some comfort. Hope you liked, send comments, kudos, etc, thanks for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melvin is sick, and with his parents busy, he turns to the only adult he feels he can trust. Himself, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out this was more finished than I thought. So here's chapter 2 of this two-shot, ahead of schedule! 
> 
> Notes: Going in hard on that ever-popular “Melvin has neglectful parents” canon. Even though we see his mom a few times in the series, and she at least seems to care, she’s certainly scatter-brained (at best). And we straight up don’t even see his dad until S3, and even then he's ...not very attentive. As far as I can tell, the neglectful angle is not contradicted in the show by canon. Yay? 
> 
> Later Note: This was written pre-Hack-a-Ween special, but even then I don’t think one line from Mr Sneedly that seems kind of attentive doesn’t absolve all of his other appearances where he’s awful. Just saying. (His mom’s okay though. She obviously tries. I swear she just has short-term memory loss or something.)

Melvin stumbled into the classroom at 8:01 am, a full minute after class had officially started. He normally would never be tardy, but today just wasn’t his day. Slouching in his seat, he periodically wiped his nose on his shirt as he attempted to pay attention to the lesson. It was hard, not because of the lackluster material like normal, but because his head was swimming and his focus kept slipping. 

If he was honest with himself (which he certainly was not being) he probably shouldn’t have been at school today. But despite how badly he had felt when he woke up, he had gone out the door before his mother could get a word in-- not that he thought she would have had much to say anyway. He and himself had plans, after all. Plans that would be ruined if he missed school. (And, he thought in the back of his mind, staying home wouldn’t have been any more help anyway.) 

Miss Ribble was in the middle of explaining the frightfully simple concept of objective pronouns when he suddenly felt an overwhelming urge. He shot his hand up, barely waiting until he was called on to urgently get out “Miss Ribble may I have the hall pass?” 

She sighed heavily, grumbling to herself, before turning -- too slow!-- to grab the hall pass from her desk. “Alright, Melvin”. But she didn’t get the chance to hand it to him before he was out the door and running for the bathroom. As he desperately tried to avoid tossing his cookies in the hall, he didn’t notice the shocked mutterings of his classmates left in his wake.( _ Did Melvin just go out without a hall pass?) _ . It was an awful five minutes before he trudged his way back to the classroom, and sat shakily back at his desk. 

Miss Ribble fidgeted anxiously as her gaze darted over to the paler-than-usual boy. She didn’t care about children, but she also didn’t want to get on the bad side of the new principal (he certainly favored Melvin, and if something happened to him in her classroom, well, she didn’t want to think about  _ that _ ). 

“Melvin” she finally said, and instead of shooting to attention like he normally did, he sluggishly raised his head and gazed at her with unfocused eyes. She pinched her nose in frustration. She  _ really  _ hated kids. She couldn’t wait to retire. “Go to the nurse’s office”. 

Instead of gratefully leaving the room like any other student would have (which normally Miss Ribble liked, but right now it was just annoying), he instead straightened in his desk, attempting to look more alert, and argued, “That’s really not necessary. I promise, I’m well enough to continue learning”. His congested voice betrayed his argument, as well as the glaze evident on his eyes no matter how alert he tried to appear. 

“I don’t want you getting sick in here” she chasited (and that  _ was  _ true, for more reasons than one), “Go to the nurse” she ordered in her sternest tone, pointing authoritatively at the door. There was only so much Melvin could do, and ignoring an authoritative point from a teacher was more than he could bear. 

“Yes ma’am” he sighed defeatedly, and slowly gathered his things and left the classroom. But once he was out in the hall, discreetly sniffling and trying to stifle his shaking shoulders, he found himself stopping short before he got to the nurse’s door. Instead he suddenly found his legs leading him in the direction of a different, growing-more-familiar-everyday office door.  _ I was told to go to the nurse _ he thought, but his head felt fuzzy and uncertain. He imagined himself, sitting in that cheap plastic bed while the school nurse (a woman he saw so infrequently he didn’t even know the name of) poked and prodded, and would finally say in an awful fake-friendly tone, because she only pretended to care because it was her job, just like every other worthless adult in this school,  _ “Oh, you’re very sick. You need to go home. I’ll call your parents” _ ; and it made him feel even more sick. He walked as he imagined, his legs moving him mechanically ever closer to the principal’s office. 

He paused for a moment at the door, feeling silly and uncertain. What was he doing here? He didn’t need any help, he knew he was sick, he could easily take himself home and take care of this there. He was a genius, for crying out loud. But, his tired mind reasoned as he stared dazedly up at the  _ Principal Sneedly  _ written sturdily on the door, he could certainly trust himself to take care of himself. Or something like that. His normally sharp mind was feeling more like jell-o as the day went on, and it was only until after he had opened the door that he belatedly agreed to himself to go in. Ignoring both Ms Anthrope and Vice Principal Krupp (and they ignored him in return), he staggered straight into the inner office, before collapsing in one of the plastic chairs across from the principal’s desk. 

Principal Melvinborg was startled out his plotting of another (definitely foolproof) plan to get himself into Elitinati, and daydreaming about how much better his life would be, as someone walked boldly into his office. Swinging down from where he had been casually leaning in his chair, he was prepared to have  _ words  _ about being let in, when he was thrown off by a wet sounding cough, and he realized that the intruder was just his younger self. And yeesh he looked bad. He cringed back against his chair for a moment-- his instinctive reaction to all things germ-related-- but remembered that that was him. Whatever was making the kid sick, he obviously had already had it. Thank goodness for that. If being sick normally was miserable, being sick as a cyborg was even worse. 

“Hey” he said, sharper than he really intended. His past self twiched faintly in reaction, “What are you doing here?” 

“Miss Ribble told me to go to the nurse’s office” the boy attempted to scoff disdainfully, but it immediately disintegrated into a round of coughing. Recovering, he continued in a forced criticizing tone, as if as long as he didn’t acknowledge the coughing fit no one would notice it, “But, like I would want to go to that hack. Probably doesn’t know...uh… an ear infection from a bee sting. And I’m not that sick, anyway.”

The adult didn’t know whether to roll his eyes or feel sympathy at what was clearly an attempt at a brave bluff. He ended up doing both. He knew why Melvin  _ really  _ didn’t go to the nurse, after all. “You can’t lie to yourself. Look...just how bad is it really?” 

Melvin shrank at the question. Normally he could sass and “I’m fine” his way out of most people’s suspicions. Since he was so smart, more often than not the person he was trying to get away from would just take him at his word, and that would be that. But  _ of course _ he couldn’t fool himself. Briefly he confused his exhausted mind with that logic. Wait wasn’t it a good thing he wasn’t fooling himself? He came here because he wanted an adult he could actually trust, right? And he’s  _ him _ so of course he can trust him. His brain warred uncertainty for a moment, it felt like his brain was short-circuiting (no offense meant to current company). The concept of trusting another person because they were not another person was just a little too much for him right now. He decided to just go with trust. It was so rare that he felt safe doing that, and he was relieved at being able to have someone help him with his problems for once. He could just pretend that he  _ wasn’t _ just himself. 

“It’s...not very good,'' he finally conceded tiredly, curling further into the hard plastic chair with a shiver while attempting to avoid his future self’s view. 

As he watched himself curl up into the chair, sniffling, Melvin felt something he hadn’t in a while...sympathy. Or at least a sympathy-adjacent feeling. Or maybe it was just self-pity. Everything got more complicated when time travel was involved. 

_ I wonder… _ he thought, and quickly looked at the calendar to confirm the date. He frowned when he saw what day it was, and couldn’t help but worry a little. He remembered this happening, now that he thought about it. It had been a particularly nasty flu, and it would have happened around this time. That time, when it happened, the school nurse had sent him home, but his father was in the lab not answering the school’s calls, his mother had constantly forgotten that he was home at all, and he was left to take care of himself. He knew that the knowledge of a waiting empty house was the main reason little Melvin was here in his office. He couldn’t blame him. When the same thing had happened to him, he got seriously sick from trying to take care of himself, and nearly had to go to the hospital. 

That being said, he shouldn’t be worried for his past self, he knew (duh) that Melvin made it through this ok, and he shouldn’t mess with the time stream over little things. And he didn’t know how to deal with children anyway, the fact that the child was himself notwithstanding. He should just send him to the nurse’s office and let things play out the way they were meant to. Melvin would be fine. But… he just couldn’t. Not with knowing how awful those days were, not when he understood why Melvin avoided the nurse, not now that he remembered how crushing it was to feel like he was dying and his father still didn’t come out from the lab. 

“Oh boy” he groaned under his breath, “This is my problem now, isn’t it?”  _ Technically  _ his thoughts sassed against his will  _ it’s “your” problem either way _ . 

Sighing, he stood up and circled around his desk, gently -- far more gently than he would usually consider -- placing his metallic hand on the child’s forehead. He didn’t need heat-sensors to tell him that the kid was burning up, but was worried by the reading given of 102°F/38°C all the same. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the almost imperceptible movement of the younger Melvin leaning his head into the cool metal. He kept his hand there for a bit longer than was strictly required. Because, darn it, he had come back in time to erase the regrets in his life. Who’s to say that Elitinati was the only one he had to fix? He knew he would have wanted an adult he could actually trust around, if he had been given the choice back then (or back now, rather). He couldn’t change the failures of his parents, but he was here, and he could make sure that a fourth grade boy didn’t have to take care of the flu all alone. 

He only tore away his hand when the younger shot up, hands coming up to his mouth and... ew, gross. Melvinborg cringed, starting to have doubts about this whole thing. But then he looked to his younger self, swiping at his mouth and curled into a virtual ball on the hard plastic chairs, and how his eyes silently asked for help in a way that he would never, he  _ knew _ he would never express out loud. He thought of the empty house, and the lonely nights, spent kept up most of the night coughing, and he sighed, picking the child up to take him somewhere actually comfortable. 

“Krupp!” he yelled towards the door as he carefully stepped around the foul smelling puddle on his office floor, “Get in here and clean this up!” Assured by Krupp’s angry muttering that the vice principal had heard him, he carried Melvin towards the secret door to the panic room. He tried not to think about -- tried not to be reminded by -- how tightly the child clung to him as he stepped into the quiet secluded room, one hand crumpling his shirt and the other clinging to his metallic shoulder. 

As the door slid shut behind him, he momentarily panicked as he thought about what he needed to do next, his eyes darting around the room. He  _ really _ didn’t actually know what to do for a sick kid. And Melvin was so quiet, in a way he knew could only mean that he was feeling really bad. And when the kid said nothing, but only sniffled and held on a little tighter, he also knew that Melvin was trusting him to help him. He wasn’t going to fail him. The determination brought clarity to his thoughts, and he realized that between the fever, the sweat, and the puke the kid could probably stand to be cleaned up a little. It was a good thing he finally got around to installing a bathroom in here. 

Setting Melvin down so that he sat on the toilet lid next to the sink, he motioned for him to stay put, saying unsteadily, “Just, uh wait here for a little. I’ll be right back”. It was a testament to how sick the younger actually was that his only response was to stare after him blearily as he backed out of the room. Ok, he could use like a towel or something, he thought as he looked around the room. The closest thing he could find was a rag that he had on hand for when he did repairs/inventing, but he grabbed it and shrugged, figuring it would be good enough. They could just work around the spatters of hydraulic fluid, it would be fine. When he got back into the bathroom, Melvin hadn’t moved, except to slouch forward a little, staring absently into the distance. 

Eh...what was it that parents were always saying on those cold medicine commercials and in tv shows? Right now tv parenting was the best reference he had for this, and he didn’t even watch that much tv. “Let’s, erm, let’s get you cleaned up a little, huh?” He thinks that that’s what a responsible adult who was definitely not just taking care of a past version of himself to make his own childhood less miserable would say. Maneuvering the rag in his hand until he found a more clean spot, he ran it under some cold water, the flesh side of his face contorting slightly as he nervously bit his lip. He shouldn’t have been such a wreck over this, he really shouldn’t have. It was really a very simple task, especially for someone with his intellect. It was just, he hadn’t had to even pretend to be nice for...jeez, for years. Actively going out of his way to try and be kind was something he couldn’t even remember doing it had been so long. 

All the same, he attempted to act nice, awkwardly rubbing hopefully gentle circles on the younger Melvin’s face and hands. Throwing the rag into the sink, he stepped back and looked over his work. Well. He looked a little brighter. Maybe. 

“Well. That’ll do it.” 

Looking only the slightest bit less sick, Melvin attempted to scooch backwards off of the toilet lid, and stand on his own two feet. Instead his shaky, tired body almost immediately had him falling to the floor. Melvinborg, reacting a bit slower than he probably should have, only stared awkwardly for a moment, before picking his younger self up once again. 

“Okay then, I’ll just...carry you. Again. To bed”. Once again he was left to assume that that was how a responsible, caring, adult would respond. Melvin once again said nothing, and looped his arms around the grown-up’s neck as he carried him out of the bathroom and into the main room. 

Melvin was still tired and shaky, and allowed himself to hold a little tighter to the adult carrying him, taking in both the coolness of the metal under his arm, and the warmth of the arm wrapped around him. He was just sick enough that he could momentarily forget that that adult was himself, and just enjoy the fact that he was being carried. He was so exhausted that he momentarily imagined, that if you squinted your eyes and twisted your brain a little, Borg could possibly pass for his dad. He was too sick and tired to think off the thought, and it made him feel a kind of warmth as he was carefully set down on a bed. Melvinborg didn’t tuck him in, but just being carried to a bed when he felt so awful was good enough. 

Tucking himself under the purple comforter, he sniffled again and coughed a bit. Even though he still felt sick, that warm feeling that came with being cared for remained. He glanced up at Melvinborg, who was himself glancing around the room and looking equal parts lost and concerned, and Melvin desperately wanted to squint his eyes and twist his brain. He wished, with a sudden panging regret, that his father showed attention to him like this. His father was always busy, and even when he was at home, whenever Melvin took his problems to him he was often told to shake it off or ignored completely and handed to his mother. He loved his mother, but sometimes...sometimes he just wanted a dad. 

Without thinking, he found himself shattering the lie by asking who was his future self and not his father, in a hoarse voice, filled with a distant hope, “Do they ever get better?” 

Melvinborg stiffened at the question and scowled, not at the fact that Melvin asked the question, but at the answer to it, knowing who Melvin meant by “they”. 

“No.” he replied bitterly, even though he shouldn’t have, even though who knows what he could do to the timeline by telling him about the future. “I haven’t even  _ interacted _ with either of them for years. As soon as I was 18 I was out of father’s hair, since I was ‘legally an adult’ and he had ‘done his job’”. 

“Very reassuring” the younger deadpanned in a hoarse voice punctuated by a cough. How was it that they managed sass no matter how terribly they felt? “At least we know we can take care of ourselves”. 

Melvinborg decided it would be better not to tell him how this situation went down originally. That he, in fact, could only take care of himself as well as a child could manage -- and that that was not nearly well enough. Awkwardly, Melvinborg coughed into his hand, and attempted at a comforting tone, “Why don’t you get some sleep?”  _ And stop asking uncomfortable questions about my--our life that I don’t want to think about.  _

To his somewhat surprise, Melvin did very quickly fall asleep. And here he had thought that he was going to keep pressing the matter. They could be frustratingly stubborn and curious when there was something they wanted to know. Maybe little Melvin was even sicker than he had originally thought. The idea had him concerned, so he once again put a hand to his forehead to check the younger’s temperature. 105°?! 

So it was as bad as he remembered it being. It was no wonder he actually still remembered this one incident (then again he had a remarkably good memory of most of the things that had happened in this year despite it being over 20 years ago, for several reasons). Strangely, the knowledge that younger him was so sick made him feel somewhat smug, instead of concerned. Because  _ this  _ time he was going to fix things. He would be a far better adult than Gaylord had ever been, and would actually  _ help  _ Melvin. (He couldn’t find it in him to rage at his mother. Even if she tended to neglect him he knew that she at least actually cared.) 

So clearly he needed to get his younger self something to lower that temperature. Tylenol or something similar. If he were in his own time, he could have worked out a cure for this flu, but regrettably the materials needed simply didn’t exist yet. (This was one of the many flaws that he refused to acknowledge in his plan.) But the tylenol, at least, shouldn't be a problem, he thought to himself as he moved to open one of the cabinets that lined the panic room’s walls, he designed this room in preparation for a world-ending disaster after all. He would definitely have tylenol in here, he figured, but when he looked through all the shelves he couldn't find any normal medicine, let alone children’s. 

“Oh come on!” he cried out, before nervously looking over at his sleeping younger self, and instead hissed under his breath, “I forgot to have  _ that  _ in here, too?” Grumbling further, he glared at the empty medicine cabinet and briefly wondered how necessary this actually was. Maybe he could get by without and everything would be fine? Another set of racking coughs from the younger Melvin answered that question, and he decided he didn’t have much choice but to leave the room to find something to reduce that fever. (He really hoped he could just take some from the school nurse. He hated going out into public any more than necessary.) With one more glance at the child in the bed to make sure he was still asleep, Melvinborg left the panic room. 

From the bed, Melvin startled awake at the unfamiliar hissing sound of a closing pneumatic door. Straightening out his glasses (even as discombobulated as he was he was slightly annoyed at himself for falling asleep with them still on), he dazedly looked around, trying to remember where he was. It wasn’t his room, and it wasn’t anywhere else in his house, and it took a moment for the memory of being carried into the panic room in his future self’s office to resurface. He blearily continued to scan the room, and soon realized that he was alone. Bitterly he considered that he apparently couldn't even trust  _ himself _ to stick around. Well that was fine, he told himself as he struggled to rise from the bed, dragging the blanket around his shoulders, he didn't need anyone's help anyway. He could and would do this by himself, just this timeline, just this him. He didn't  _ need  _ caring friends or attentive parents or any other adult. 

Staggering to the cabinets, the blanket trailing behind him, he stubbornly decided to grab a glass and get himself a drink of water. One hand clutching the blanket, he stood on tiptoe to reach for a glass on one of the high shelves, gently tipping it towards him. Or at least he was trying to be gentle, but he sorely miscalculated, and knocked the glass off the shelf, sending it flying towards his face. He ducked, closing his eyes against the inevitable impact of glass cup on face (the way things always seemed to go for him), but it never came. 

“What are you doing?” he heard Melvinborg’s annoyed voice say to his right. Opening his eyes, he saw that the glass was clutched in a familiar metallic hand, and he sighed in relief for having the idea for an extendable robot arm. But then he remembered why he had almost been hit by it in the first place, and he shot back, voice trying to sound as self-righteous and offended as he could manage with a sore throat and a stuffy nose, “You left. I was taking care of  _ myself _ like I always do. You should know that”. 

Walking towards him, arms normal length and now crossed in annoyance, the older Melvin’s response was a glare. Melvin startled when he realized that that was his “you’re an idiot” stare, the one he usually used when his classmates were missing the obvious. It felt so weird to be on the receiving end of his own glare. 

“I left to get  _ this _ ” his future self said in a tone that matched his expression, shaking a small bottle in front of his face. It took Melvin a moment to make out that the object was a bottle of children’s Tylenol. “You weren’t supposed to wake up. And it took longer than expected because at first the school nurse said she only had the grape flavored. I’m not going to get the  _ grape  _ one, that stuff is disgusting. So it took some extra time to get her to find the cherry kind.” While he was ranting about flavors of tylenol, he didn’t notice the younger Melvin swaying unsteadily where he stood. It started to turn into a rant about the nurse herself, when the boy started to fall over, and he was reminded what he was doing. 

Grabbing Melvin, he once again carried him to the bed, and plopped him down on it, the blanket falling half-haphazardly around him. 

“Alright, here. Just drink this”, he said, impatiently holding out a medicine spoon of red liquid, the encounter with the nurse fraying his ability to pretend to be nice. 

Melvin didn’t mind the impatient tone, he was still just happy to have someone there giving him medicine at all. 

Melvinborg spent a  _ fantastic  _ next several hours abandoning his principal duties (which he somehow still had  _ despite _ re-hiring Krupp. He had the distinct impression that the man hadn't done paperwork even when he had actually _ been _ principal, which honestly explained a lot), and taking care of the sick Melvin instead. 

He was just measuring out the second dose of Tylenol when the bell rang, announcing the end of the school day. They looked at each other, knowing that technically the younger Melvin should be going home. Handing his younger self the measuring spoon, Melvinborg said, "Look, you should go home--"

“Why?” shot back the younger Melvin, coughing and drinking the medicine, “You  _ know  _ what it will be like. Can’t I just stay here for the night? It’s not like I haven’t done it before”. 

_ No. No way _ . Was Melvinborg’s immediate thought. There were many reasons that he shouldn’t let his past self stay the night, ranging from the fact he was getting  _ really tired  _ of having to take care of him to the fear of the (admittedly slim) chance that his parents actually did notice his absence. So far he liked to think he had done a very good job avoiding any interaction with them. 

All the same, younger him was correct. He knew exactly what it would be like if Melvin simply went home. Gaylord wouldn’t be bothered and his mother would likely forget he was even sick. The night would still be lonely and miserable, and in the end didn’t that negate the point of any of this? The nights were the worst part of it, now that he was really thinking about it. 

As the sick child was slowly growing more dejected and disappointed, he finally relented, “You know what? Sure. Fine.” 

And despite the likely hours of suffering he was going to endure at the cost of sickness care, it felt worth it just to see his younger self actually happy for once. Life for him had been miserable, it felt like, for a long time, even before this fourth grade year when he lost his hopes and dreams. But this, right here, this Melvin at least felt happy and cared for instead of sick and abandoned.  _ So, take that, _ **_father,_ ** he once again couldn’t help but think in a twisted sort of smug victory, _ this time I’m not going to let your negligence hurt me. _

He didn’t say any of this out loud, of course. Instead he got up from the bed and crossed the room to turn on the monitors, setting them so that they formed one large uniform screen. “Well, I have enough NOVA documentaries on here to last a few days. I had assumed we’d need something more substantial than cartoons to keep us entertained if the world ended, so I prepared”. 

Grabbing a remote, he sat down on the bed next to his younger self, asking, “So, what should we watch first?” 

They ended up watching through the relaxingly simplistic series on the planets. It was their own Sesame Street when they were really little, and the smaller Melvin admitted that it was all that he really felt up to watching. 

They were midway through Venus when little Melvin fell to the side, asleep, his cheek leaning on Melvinborg’s knee with a small clang against his metal leg. Melvinborg couldn’t help but cringe slightly at the sound -- there was no way that that was comfortable-- but it softened to a smile as he noticed the peaceful expression on his once self’s face. It was completely different than it had been for him, and once again he was glad and proud that he was able to fix at least  _ something  _ in his awful childhood. 

Carefully he navigated the sleeping child’s face off of his impromptu metallic pillow, and laid him onto the bed, taking the glasses off of his face and setting them aside. It was going to be a long night, probably, but he would be here. But hopefully Melvin would be well enough in the morning to go back to class, because he seriously didn’t want to have to do this again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this story, it's been in the works since around August, and I'm glad I was finally able to post it. Leave kudos, comments, etc, thanks for reading.


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